The Pens continued their romp through the standings, beating the Atlantic leading Devils 5-4. After going up 3-0 they once more let the Devils get close, though part was that Fleury let in a very soft goal to Travis Zajac, but with the way he has been playing recently you can hardly blame him.
Crosby ended his scoring drought and added an assist and continued to tighter his grip on the scoring race. Staal got yet another goal, and Scuderi got his first of the year (though both he and Malone maintain Malone deflected it in), and Josef Melichar added two assists.
Jarrko Ruutu also potted two goals, as the 3rd line pairing of Ruutu-Moore-Petrovicky continued to be effective in all aspects.
Oullet had a very nice pass to set up Staal's goal, but at the end of the game instead of skating up ice and dumping the puck during an empty net, he decided to shoot from his own blueline and get an icing call. This led to a minute and a half in the Pens zone of the Devils nearly scoring. Tip for Michel- if you can't hit the net from 5 feet away, there's a good chance you won't hit it from 50 feet away either.
The Devils players had good things to say about the Pens, invluding Scott Gomez saying "They are the real deal."
I would also like to point out some complaints I have seen about the pairing of Scuderi-Melichar, widely regarded as the two worst defensemen on the team. Initially, I was wondering what Therrien was doing also, but then I realized he did the right thing. The top two pairings of Eaton-Gonchar and Orpik-Whitney have both been plyaing very well during this winning stretch. Do you really want to break up that chemistry? I agree with Therrien that better to have one weak ebtter and two good ones, than one good one and two average to weak pairings.
Three Stars:
1) Ruutu
2) Crosby
3) Rafalski
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1 comment:
You write very well.
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